Oxford United blamed the pitch and a failure to combat a direct style of play after Bristol Rovers brought them crashing back down to earth at the Kassam Stadium on Saturday.

The Us booked a Wembley date by seeing off Luton Town in the semi-final of the EFL Trophy last week, but impressive Rovers scored a 2-0 victory on Saturday following first-half goals off the boots of Ollie Clarke.and Stuart Sinclair.

Manager Darrell Clarke praised his players for what he labelled a “very strong performance” – but Oxford United painted a very different picture in some of the post-match analysis at the Kassam Stadium.

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Defender Phil Edwards acknowledged that Rovers were “better than us on the day” – but bemoaned the playing surface, when telling the Oxford Mail: “It’s our home so we should adapt to the conditions better.

“We’re a team who like to get it down and pass it, but you can see the state of it, it doesn’t help our cause.

“You don’t know which way the ball is going to bounce, so you need to try to concentrate a lot more.

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“Against direct sides like Wimbledon, Southend and Northampton we need to get better at dealing with them when they go direct.”

Both Rovers and Oxford retain an outside chance of securing an end-of-season play-off place. Rovers moved up to eighth place in League One, but are still seven points behind sixth-placed Millwall, who have a game in hand.

Oxford are two points and two places further back but have played three less games than Rovers and will still fancy their chances of making a late charge.